Book 2. The Grand Gathering. Chapter 7. Little Accidents. (Part III)

“I’m at the early stages of the seventh mortal realm,” Anatis said with a slight smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

“And I’m at the late stages of the fifth realm, but not quite at the peak yet,” Laien said merrily, as a result getting Anatis to smirk at him; really, Laien was such a tease with everything he did.

“Seventh mortal realm? At this age?” Anna spoke with admiration and disbelief as a certain connection to an event from a week ago turned up in her mind. She had seen some ridiculous talents in her lifetime, but a twelve-year-old at the seventh mortal realm was a first for her. If this golden-haired boy wasn’t lying, then he could only be one person according to her current knowledge.

Anatis only smiled at Anna, having no comments on the subject. He was pleased enough to see everyone amazed; it would be more like Laien to stir the situation up even further, not like him.

“So you are the stronger one?” Nan asked out of the blue, gazing at Anatis excitedly from behind her older sister.

“Oi, what are you asking…?!” the older sister whispered helplessly, wondering how come her little sister grew up to be such a rowdy child.

“We are equally matched,” Anatis responded with a laugh and exchanged a glance with Laien. That should be enough, right? Now he could hand over the baton of leading this conversation to him and relax, hopefully…?

“How come?” Nan asked in confusion. “He didn’t learn a martial art yet! He can’t be as strong as you!” she said without meaning anything bad by it, but managed to get most of the women and girls to smile awkwardly. Telling a boy that he was weaker than his friend… what was she thinking?

“It’s true I wouldn’t be a match for Anatis in martial cultivation,” Laien said with a cheeky smile. “I’m a dual practitioner, though,” he added, purposely not saying anything else.

“You are a spiritual practitioner?” Alex raised her eyebrows. “It’s pretty unusual in the south, especially in our Kingdom… at what realm are you?” she inquired, but she already had a suspicion or two after Anatis claimed Laien to be equal to him in the overall strength.

“Seventh, at the middle stages,” Laien said merrily, as always feeling quite good to be bragging about the results of his training. However, he frowned the next second and quickly shifted his gaze to Anna. “Happy enough after checking?” he asked wryly, annoyed by the sensation of an unfamiliar aura washing past his body akin to a gust of cold, unpleasant wind.

“He can sense my aura?” Anna’s eyes opened wide, only for her and one other woman to gasp when Laien released his own aura and probed her in return.

“Fifth Realm of Heroes, stronger than I expected,” Laien murmured along with a chuckle, amused to discover that his spiritual sense, which he had long since merged with his aura, by the looks of it ended up being sensed only by Anna and one other woman who was at the third Realm of Heroes.

Well, technically some other of those women might have had been able to sense it too, but his spiritual sense could be actively extended to at most ten meters or so; they were simply sitting too far away from him, so they also had no chance to discover what was going on.

“Anatis and Laien; a golden-haired boy at the seventh mortal realm and a black-haired boy who is a spiritual practitioner,” Anna mused silently, now fairly confident of the boys’ identities. “No wonder they are so monstrous, they are pupils of the Great Masters from the Red Dragon School and the Twin Phoenix School,” she thought resignedly and even though she disliked to so, she couldn’t stop herself from sighing.

“It was impolite of me, please forget about it,” Anna said calmly and bowed her head slightly towards Laien, causing all the women and girls who had been unable to perceive the little exchange going on between the two of them to stare at her in consternation.

“Sure, but no speaking about formalities anymore, okay?” Laien said with a grin, not wanting this evening to turn serious. He wanted to have some fun as ‘Laien’, not as the representative of the thirteenth Prince or the personal disciple of Rudford’s. There would be enough time to make alliances and have serious talks later on.

“You have my word,” Anna said with a rare laugh, making those of her companions who still didn’t realize who Laien and Anatis were to nearly die of shock.

This strict and cynical senior of theirs was being courteous to a kid just because he claimed to be unrealistically powerful…? It took the less perceptive half of them a good few moments to realize Anna must have acted this way for a reason, thus prompting them to actually believe the words of those two youths.

“I’m pretty sure he released his spiritual sense just now,” Anatis mused, enjoying the unfolding spectacle from the sidelines.

“I can more or less tell because the aura of Tranquility and Wrath inside him fluctuates slightly when he does, but it’s still just a vague feeling. Eh, just like he told me, his aura is so much stronger than mine since he is a spiritual practitioner.” Anatis sighed secretly. A few days ago, he suddenly recalled how Laien was able to instantly tell how strong Injar was when he intervened and saved them at the arena, so he asked Laien about it. Learning how to use aura wasn’t too hard, but in a country filled with only martial artists, its usefulness was limited.

“No wonder most people don’t even bother with it. Unless you are at late Realms of Heroes, you can’t even stretch your aura too far. It’s much more convenient to rely on one’s owns natural senses and later on, on the battle sense to get a gist of how strong your opponent is,” Anatis reasoned to himself, but admittedly was somewhat jealous of Laien’s spiritual sense.

He could imagine quite a few situations in which a powerful aura could prove useful; alas, there was nothing he could do about it. He had no aptitude as a spiritual practitioner whatsoever, so there was no way for him to quickly and easily strengthen his aura according to what he was aware of.

“Good.” Laien chortled. “So, anyone has any stories to tell to loosen the mood?” he asked carefreely, reaching out to his glass of wine.

“Sure do,” Lara said with a huge grin on her face. As far as doing reckless, sometimes stupid things that more often than not involved breaking the rules went, she was an expert. She already had one of such stories in mind, so after quickly ordering a few drinks for herself and those who wanted them, she began telling the story… perhaps forgetting that some of her seniors were also listening in.

For over an hour, the six twelve-year-olds continued chatting, laughing and drinking. Even Anatis began thinking that perhaps, having been pulled into this whole thing by Laien wasn’t so bad after all.

As for Laien, he was enjoying himself to the fullest, making wry comments and inappropriate jokes with a high frequency. What’s more, if one paid some attention, he would notice how compared to an hour ago, he and Alex were sitting much closer to each other, their shoulders brushing fairly often. The two of them progressively began doing things like poking the other with an elbow or pecking with hands, sometimes going as far as letting them remain a bit longer than necessary at the other’s shoulder or thigh. Basically, they were getting more and more familiar and casual as the time passed.

“Martial training?” Laien mused aloud. “I used not to like it too much, but now I’m always looking forward to it. It feels nice to be getting stronger… and it tones your body with muscles very nicely,” he replied to Alex’s question and a part of his shirt up, showing her the lightly toned muscles on his stomach. In Laien’s opinion, those muscles which he developed through an unbelievable amount of sparring with Shire, with Rudford and the disciples of the Red Dragon School were much better than typical bulky muscles of someone who trained specifically to make them visible.

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“You used not to like it, but you still got to the late fifth realm at your age?” Alex asked with a laugh, her flushed cheeks growing even redder as she looked at Laien’s stomach and at the visible lines of his groin just below it. She soon found herself imagining how Laien looked down there, but the sheer embarrassment of the thought caused her to quickly look away from him.

“I didn’t like to train physically, but I still gave my best and didn’t slack,” Laien said carefreely, his smile growing mischievous. “That being said, what kind of training do you do? How does your body shape because of it?” he inquired, in the back of his mind comparing Alex’s frame with Siana’s.

Ever since she started training hard, Siana grew some muscles, but her overall shapes remained delicate. Maybe the part of it was her being pretty young since from what Laien noticed, older girls and women tended to have muscles on their arms and legs. He was fairly curious if other parts, like stomach and the back would also change with age and training or would they remain fairly ‘girly’.

“We grow muscles just like you do,” Alex responded in a somewhat troubled manner, the subject apparently being a sensitive one to her.

“Think I could take a look?” Laien asked straightforwardly, pretending not to see Anatis smiling resignedly and the other three girls appearing to be about to burst with something like ‘kyaa!’, while also ignoring the increasingly clear murderous intent which Alex’s older sister was emanating.

“Uh,” Alex groaned silently. Normally, she would have refused straight out if a boy asked her something like this the day she met him; she had started feeling self-conscious about her body about a year ago when she had noticed herself growing more muscular than her friends despite her delicate facial features. “Just spare me the comments if you don’t like it, okay?” she said frustratingly and pulled up her shirt, stopping her hand just a few centimeters below her chest.

Laien whistled quietly, surprised by how well toned Alex’s stomach was. The outline of abs was more visible on hers than his, but paired up with Alex’s body type… Laien was almost certain it would look amazing if one could look at the whole picture, not just at a bit of revealed skin.

“I knew it, it looks bad right?” Alex said angrily and pulled her shirt down, regretting that she agreed to Laien’s request.

“Actually, it looks great,” Laien said honestly, feeling a bit amused by Alex’s pouting expression.

“You are lying,” Alex claimed stubbornly, refusing to look Laien in the eye.

“Why would I?” Laien asked with a laugh, not getting frustrated by Alex’s stubbornness at all.

“… To make out with me?” Alex asked suspiciously, but couldn’t help but smile wryly as she did. Now that she began thinking about it rationally instead of letting emotions overtake, she realized how unreasonable she was acting.

“I wouldn’t do a stupid thing like that,” Laien said with a chuckle. What would be the point of going after a girl he didn’t find her attractive? If he liked something, he would say so; and if he didn’t, he would similarly reveal it without any qualms.

“Really?” Alex asked with a smirk, though the expression on her face was more than enough of a proof that she had been convinced by Laien.

“Really,” Laien chortled and to empathize the point, reached out rubbed Alex’s stomach with his hand, what caused the silver-haired girl to fidget a little.

“That tickles, stop clenching your hand,” Alex said while suppressing a laugh, glancing at Laien with very obviously acted-out discontent.

Laien raised his eyebrows and smiled cheekily. So, she was telling him to stop tickling her, but didn’t necessarily have anything against having her stomach rubbed? If so, then he certainly would have liked to go a bit further with it.

“Eh?” When Laien’s hand slid under her shirt, Alex stiffened up briefly. However, when she discovered he wasn’t reaching too far up, she relaxed again. In fact, after a moment of being teased in such a way, she turned towards Laien and to her friends’ disbelief and excitement, put her hand on his shoulder and began leaning forward, her lips moving closer and closer to his.

“Alex, enough!” the girl’s older sister snapped, her loud shout startling Alex and causing her to freeze in place. “What do you think you are doing, eh?!” the young woman yelled angrily, but before she could finish what she wanted to say, got disrupted.

“Alisia, not so loud,” Anna reprimanded lightly, but this time did nothing to solve the argument, feeling that is should be addressed properly if only for Alisia’s sake.

“Alex, just think about it for a while,” Alisia spoke up, this time more quietly. “You think he’s going to treat you seriously? That you will become his girlfriend or something? He only wants to fool around, value yourself more highly!” she argued, barely restraining herself from shouting. In her opinion, Laien was nothing but a spoiled brat and a womanizer; he wasn’t worth being with her little sister!

“Big sis…” Alex sighed resignedly, then looked at Laien. “Are you fooling around?” she asked without beating around the bush.

“Yup, I’m not looking for a girlfriend yet,” Laien replied and shrugged his shoulders, thinking how overprotective this big sister of Alex’s was

“See?! I told you!” Alisia hissed furiously, not even stopping her train of thoughts to consider why Laien ‘admitted’ to be the bad one here without beating. Only when she saw Alex smiling despite Laien’s statement did she begin to wonder if something wasn’t wrong with her own reasoning.

“And neither am I looking for a boyfriend,” Alex said with a laugh and looked away from her big sister, exchanging a glance with Laien. “I’m fine with having some fun, but there’s no chance I will go all the way with you,” she told him more for the sake of making it clear to her older sister, as she had understood Laien’s intentions a long time ago just like he had understood hers,

“I know,” Laien chuckled, glancing into Alex’s silver eyes. He was definitely attracted to her, but even with how lighthearted and carefree he was about everything, he preferred his first time to be something more special than a random night with a girl he had just become friends with. If he wasn’t sure he really loved the girl, he wouldn’t want to have sex with her.

“See, big sis? Just calm down and leave us alone. I’m not as irresponsible or naïve as you think,” Alex said in a consoling tone, but at the same time with a strong resolution present in her eyes. She no longer was the little girl that needed to be protected and taken care of by her older sister. She could make her own decisions and in case they turned out bad, she would take responsibility for them and move on! If she were to forever be pampered by Alisia, she would never be able to grow up, or to kiss a boy!

“So that being said, let’s continue,” Alex said with a smile and turned away from her big sister, put her hand at Laien’s thigh and before he could react in any way, leaned forward and kissed him.

Alisia’s mouth opened wide, then closed and opened once again as she was failing to find the tongue in her mouth. Anna smiled to herself, while the three friends of Alex’s nearly died of shock. Amongst the four of them, Alex had always been the most reserved, level-headed one, but to think she would act so boldly; and in front of everyone…!

After a few seconds, Alex pulled away and took a good look at Laien’s face as if trying to tell whether he liked it or not.

“Over already?” Laien asked quietly, his lips curving into a typical mischievous smile of his. He grabbed Alex at the waist with both hand and pulled her onto his lap, seating her on top of one of his crossed legs and hugging her with one arm.

Since Alex didn’t resist him at all and even seemed to be anticipating more, he didn’t waste any more time and planted a kiss of his own on Alex’s soft lips. He didn’t hurry, instead steadily deepening the kiss with each passing second. He savored the feeling of Alex’s body sticking close to his own and enjoyed the sweet fragrance of her hair and similarly sweet taste of the red wine on her lips.

He backed off for a bit, intending to take a little break. However, when he saw Alex’s totally flushed and melted expression, he couldn’t help but close onto her again. Yet, he stopped just a few centimeters away, as if unwilling to give her the kiss if she didn’t go for it herself.

Not betraying Laien’s expectations, Alex went for the kiss almost immediately, completely intoxicated with the incredibly pleasant experience. She didn’t resist at all when Laien started adding the tongue to the mix, herself impatient to find out how it would feel to do something so lewd.

She released a muffled moan when Laien sucked her tongue in a playful manner. She shivered a little, then after a few seconds returned the favor.

“Whoa, that’s hot,” Anatis thought to himself, observing the two quietly. “I need to do something similar with Nila later…” he mused, his face growing red as he imagined a few more things than he necessarily intended to. The next moment, however, he frowned as a familiar flash of golden hair caught his eye on the street. He glanced in that direction and when he saw the two girls, he felt a cold sweat pour all over his back.

“Nila and Laien’s little sister! What are they doing here?!” he thought in alarm, praying for the two not to notice them, but as if drawn in by his gaze and nervousness Nila turned her head and randomly looked in their direction.

“They found us in the crimson district, we are dead. Dead!” Anatis felt his face grow deathly pale as he looked how Nila and Siana exchanged a few words, to then start walking in their direction. He glanced at Laien and Alex, who were still in the middle of making out and laughed helplessly. They have all screwed up really bad, haven’t they?